You Don't Know What To Think
by Devilaire Mshadi
Summary: You don't know what to think, anymore. It used to be so simple. You were a freak, unwanted, unloved. Life was simple. You didn't have to worry about lies. Oneshot.


You don't know what to think, anymore.

It used to be so simple. You were a freak, unwanted, unloved. You were chased down the street and bullied by your own cousin; you were shunned in the playground and forbidden from being smart; you were a cast aside, a person who didn't matter, and what's worse: you loved it. You loved every single minute of being ignored, of looking out for yourself, of knowing that all you had to do was run and you could get away from it all. Life was simple. You didn't have to worry about lies.

Now, well, they showed up at your door, telling you that you were special, powerful, a boy who had lived through a curse that killed everyone it touched. You had survived, and somehow, you weren't surprised. After all, it's what you were known to do. So you agreed, you followed, you walked into Gringotts bank and never looked back. You bought your clothes and supplies for school and were happy because they were yours, and no one else's. The robes, the books, the wand—no one could take them from you, claim them as their own. You owned something. You were in control. But not for long.

There was a dark presence at the school you went to; it hung over your head even as you tried to tell yourself that it wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't real. That's what you always say, as if that would somehow make the knowing go away. Yes, you knew there was something wrong. You knew there was something behind your professor's turban; you just didn't want to know _what_. So you shirked off all your fear and hate and loathing onto the other professor, the one with greasy hair and a hooked nose, the one that scorned you and spited you and outright hated every single inch of you, just like the Dursleys. You turned everything that went wrong towards him because it felt natural.

Everything bad in your life always happened because of the Dursleys, who despised you, so why should he be different when he despised you as well?

Well, it ended up that your heart was wrong; your mind and gut told you that something lay behind the turban, and you ignored it. You were such a fool, then, and it wouldn't be the last time. You faced the turban, faced the spirit of the dark lord who had killed your parents, and you wanted to run. Fight or flight, the law goes, and you were ready for running. Don't know what stopped you, but it must have been something, some sort of spark in the mind or clench in the gut that rooted you to the ground even as the turban neared, intent on killing you and getting the stone; and you're not sure what it was, but you know that something rose out of you, that you pulled something into your hands and shoved—shoved it into him, away from you, all the hate and loathing and fear and anger and frustration, all shoved into the turban, and he faded away. He faded into the ground, and with him your consciousness slowly withdrew until you were just a boy on the floor, no past, no mind, no future. Just Harry.

That was the last time you ever got to be 'Just Harry' again.

Your second year at the school ushered in a sense of hopelessness. People were being paralyzed by an unknown entity in the hallways, and there was a constant voice whispering around the corners, whispering Blood, whispering Now, whispering Mine. You were scared, and you had every right to be. You were hearing voices, and then suddenly, people were accusing you of paralyzing all those kids, accusing you because you _did_ hear voices, and you acted like it was a normal occurrence. You knew something was in the hallways, just like you had known about the turban and just like you knew that something wasn't right with Tom Riddle, in that innocuous journal that spoke for itself. So when you went into the journal's memory, and then saw Tom writing back to you, you knew that you should be wary; you knew that you shouldn't trust him, that something was off. But he was Head Boy, you told yourself. He's not evil.

How wrong you were.

You knew there was something behind that sly smile, that air of authority, that assurance of another's wrongs. You knew that ignoring your intuition would invariably accomplish evil, but still you ignored it, you pushed it out of mind and focused on your studies, on your jokes with your red-headed friend who was sticking beside you even though you were _evil, filthy, vile, dirty_. And, invariably, it accomplished evil. You had thought, foolishly, that the authority figures at the school would be able to handle what seemed so easy to you; and it would have been so easy for you to follow the snake's whispers, to find out the spell that made the diary write back, to realize that the 'something' wrong with Ginny was that her mind was being taken over by a former seventh year boy with delusions of grandeur. But no, of course not, you had to push all of that to the back of your mind so that you could focus on the redheaded boy and the bushy-haired girl and how _maybe alone wasn't better, after all_. That was your first serious lack of judgment, but it wouldn't be your last.

That year, no one died. In Fourth Year, though, you had no such luck. You knew all year long that something was wrong, that Moody smelled like a potion you'd once done with Hermione, but you couldn't put your finger on what, and you were too spiteful to ask the hook-nosed teacher about it, the one you despised. You were too spiteful and too stuck up and too bloody ignorant to realize the ramifications of your decisions. All your life, bad things happened because of you. Why did you even think that your new school would be different? You knew that someone put your name in the Goblet to kill you, so why didn't you follow your intuition and try to research all the possible culprits at the school who could've gotten near the Goblet? Why did you so passively accept your impending death and go on with the Tournament, ignoring the fights to death except the few days before the Tasks? You were a fool. That's why. You thought you were safe. You wouldn't be making that mistake again. You tried to do the right thing and give the Cup to Cedric, but "the right thing" had never worked in the past, and you knew it wouldn't then. You knew that he would feel guilty taking all the glory, especially since he was a Hufflepuff. You knew that you'd share the Cup and that not all was as it seemed. You knew something bad was about to happen, but you didn't know what, so you took the Cup with him.

You've always regretted being so selfless. If you had been selfish, maybe Cedric would be alive. Maybe you could love him, too. And in that moment, when the green light was speeding toward him, too fast and too soon for you to comprehend the situation, you did love him, and you knew he loved you, too. And now you'll never know if that love was real, or just something you felt in the moment. You'll never know, and you'll always have that feeling inside of you like something is missing that you misplaced somewhere, maybe in your bedroom, maybe under a rock, maybe beside a gravestone in a graveyard thousands of miles away.

You'll never know, because you're a selfless, selfless bastard.

And when fifth year came, you were vengeful, and you were mad, and you knew that something was happening in your mind that shouldn't be. You were aware of the slime creeping around the recesses of your thoughts, aware of the sense of pervading darkness, but you were too focused on that other feeling inside of you, on lashing out at those who didn't seem to understand you, that you didn't stop the entity before it had grounded itself in your mind's core. By then, it was too late. The visions came, soon, tantalizing you and taunting you with their vividness. All the visions you had were true, except that one; and how were you to know, really? That man _had_ been talking to Voldemort back in Fourth Year, and Arthur _did_ get attacked around Christmas, and you had seen both of those in your visions, so how, really, were you to expect any different? And where were the others to tell you otherwise?

But that's not the whole truth.

You knew. You knew something was wrong with that vision, that it was just too forced, too real and too fake, and yet you went anyway, went to save your precious grandfather and, perhaps, save yourself, too. Maybe, if you could stop this early, it wouldn't continue on and kill another person that would cause the growing emptiness inside of you to multiply exponentially, on and on, until you didn't know left from right. Maybe, if you could stop him now, you could save them all, and they wouldn't have to revere you any more, because you wouldn't be of any more use to them. Maybe you were a fool. Maybe you weren't prepared. Maybe you knew that, and you went anyway, because that feeling from first year came back, that 'fight or flight' mechanism of yours that had your mind running, your feet planted firmly on the ground, and your heart reaching out to destroy the darkness. Maybe you really were a hero. Maybe you weren't. Maybe you didn't know what you were, but you _did_ know this: that vision wasn't like the others. Too bad Dumbledore died thinking that he had failed you because he hadn't warned you that the visions could be false, died thinking that he had failed you for something you already knew.

And when Sirius fell through that veil, it wasn't like Cedric. There was no instantaneous look of horror and love that connected your souls together. Instead, it was as if Bellatrix had sent a spell at your chest that slowly, one by one, pulled a few strings from your heart and wound them tightly around her hand, drawing your heart ever closer to her darkness and insanity. And when Voldemort tried to possess you, he didn't leave your mind because of some overwhelming sense of love, like Dumbledore had suggested; he left because Bellatrix was still pulling out your heart from behind the other door; he left because he had never felt that kind of pain before, ostracized and unattached as he had been in his early years. And maybe that was love, you know? Maybe that constant removal of strings and nerve endings from your heart was your love showing you that you could feel pain, or maybe it was just agony and no more. You didn't like to think on it. All you knew was that Voldemort, for all his torture and bravado, didn't like pain. He hadn't grown accustomed to it like you had; it had been so many years since something so trivial as physical or emotional pain had be inflicted on him that he couldn't stand it in your body, which was battered and weak and emotionally desolate. He couldn't stand your humanity, so he left. You don't think he'll ever try that again, but still in case, you've started preparing yourself.

Dumbledore told you during your Sixth Year about the Horcruxes that Tom had made, how the murderer couldn't himself be killed until the Horcruxes were destroyed, how he had less than one-twenty-eighth of a soul and was barely even human—not that you were surprised, really, seeing as how that snake-faced bastard hadn't even had testicles before he'd put the Death Eater-offered robe on, after the ritual in Fourth Year.

But now, you had that to worry about, as well. Dumbledore was dead, and Snape killed him, and Malfoy was a Death Eater, and Ginny would get hurt if she tried to stay with you. And so, you planned to go to Godric's Hollow, you planned to find the Horcruxes and destroy them, one by one, just like Voldemort planned to destroy those you loved, one by one. He sent visions to you in your dreams, but this time, you knew which ones were false. You listened to your intuition, and it told you to stay away. If your friends got hurt, it wasn't your fault. You were doing all you could to save them. You were going to destroy that bastard, even if he took you with him, because that's what you were expected to do, and no one else could. There was that prophecy, wasn't there? But still… something didn't ring true about it. And so you watched, and you planned, and you waited, and you wondered.

And when the war was done and the Horcruxes were destroyed, you faded away. You walked away from the corpse, sent a few letters overnight, and left the rest of the world to deal with the repercussions, to stitch itself back together. You didn't expect that corruption would overtake the government, once again. You didn't expect that there would be persecution and bias and death, as a result of your killing the Dark Lord. You didn't expect it, but you should have. You should have known. You should have been prepared. You should have formed the government yourself, instead of running away. You should have stayed.

But you didn't, and now, here the world is… needing to be changed.

This time, you won't screw up. This time, you'll be prepared. This time, nothing and no one will stop you from setting the world right.

Too bad you didn't realize that that was exactly what Tom Riddle thought, half a decade ago. Too bad you didn't realize that part of his insanity was still inside of you. Too bad, because now, the world is in for more darkness.

You once asked,_ "What do you want of me_?"

And the darkness whispered,_ "Your soul."_


End file.
